The crowd observed a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the minute the bombing began 72 years ago.

A vintage World War II-era airplane — a 1944 North American SNJ-5B — flew overhead to break the silence. The Hawaii Air National Guard has used its fighter jets and helicopters to perform the flyover for many years, but federal budget cuts prevented it from participating this year.

“I come back to be with my comrades — meet the ones who are still alive, and we're going fast,” said Delton Walling, who was assigned to the battleship Pennsylvania at the time of the attack.

The Navy and National Park Service co-hosted the ceremony, which was open to the public. Their theme for the event, “Sound the Alarm,” explored how Americans answered a call to duty in the wake of the attack.

The current U.S. Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., said the U.S. remembers the warning from those who survived.

“We remember Pearl Harbor, we are vigilant, and we are ready to fight tonight and win,” Harris said. “Not only are we poised to respond to the first notes of the alarm bell, we are also doing everything possible to keep those alarms from sounding in the first place.”

Former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia was the keynote speaker.

The Vietnam War veteran is currently secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission, which is responsible for managing overseas cemeteries for fallen American troops.

Later in the day, Pearl Harbor survivors were to join military and government officials in a parade through Waikiki.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will study a remote island used as an airstrip in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands that is often littered with plastic debris, the first step in a process that could eventually place it on the list of the country’s most hazardous sites.

A Civil War-period coat worn by a nurse — a woman from a prominent Mathews County family who some believe was the only woman to be commissioned as a captain in the Confederate Army — is among the nominees for Virginia's Top 10 Endangered Artifacts program.

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK — The Navy on Saturday commissioned the USS John Warner, adding a 12th Virginia-class submarine to the fleet and celebrating the legacy of its namesake, the retired senator who was hailed as a statesman.